Part 1 of Essay
"When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood." So begins the luminous ....

Part 2 of Essay
.... begging a pig's head for Christmas dinner and gathering coal from the roadside to light a fire, Frank endures poverty, near-starvation and the casual cruelty of relatives and neighbors--yet lives to tell his tale with eloquence, exuberance and remarkable forgiveness. Angela's Ashes is colored on every page with Frank McCourt's astounding humor and compassion. It is a glorious book that bears all the marks of a classic. ORAL BOOK REVIEW "When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to ....